Golf: Open Championship 2024 Odds, Picks & Predictions
by Tyler Doty | by Tyler Doty
Picks and Predictions for the 2024 Open Championship
Royal Troon will play host to the 152nd Open Championship this week. It will be the 10th time Royal Troon has hosted the major golf championship and the 1st time since 2016. As is tradition with all Open Championship courses, Royal Troon is a links style course that features pot bunks that can make a typical professional golfer look like your remedial municipal course amateur on any hole. Looking back to 2016 it last hosted, Henrik Stenson defeated Phil Mickelson by 3 strokes. The rest of the field finished 11 strokes worse than Mickelson and Stenson player nearly perfect to pick up the win.
Key Factors to consider at Royal Troon
There are a few important factors to take into consideration when deciding on who to place potential wagers on in the Open Championship. They are:
- Driving distance
- Accuracy
- Ability to scramble
- Putting
The last 2 champions at Royal Troon combined to be in the top 15 of all of these important statistics. One factor that used to be considered important but no longer may be, due to the recent winners, is the finishes in recent Open Championships. Collin Morikawa won the tournament in 2021 in his debut at the event. The year prior, Cam Smith lifted the Claret Jug after missing the cut the year prior and finishing a weak 78th in the year before that. Instead of prior Open performances, it is worth to note what the winners of the event have been ranked in the Overall World Golf Rankings. Since 2013, the last 10 champions had all been ranked inside the Top 25 with the exception of Shane Lowry in 2019 (33rd) and last year’s champion, Brian Harman, who was as close as possible (26th).
The last 2 champions at Royal Troon combined to be in the top 15 of all of these important statistics.
Some of those that fall into these categories this season are: Xander Schauffele, Denny McCarthy, Rory McIlroy, and Tommy Fleetwood. We will dive deeper into these players and give out a couple of what we believe are our best bets for each for this week. Of the aforementioned names, only Denny McCarthy is outside of the top 25, he currently ranks 34th.
2024 Open Championship Odds
Rory McIlroy is currently at +750 odds to win while Xander Schauffele is +1200. Tommy Fleetwood is standing at +2200 and McCarthy is well down the list a +20000. If we are going to place a wager on the outright win, we would recommend taking Schauffele and Fleetwood as they seem to be the best value for your wager. Rory is just too short of odds to be worth a future on and McCarthy is only worthy of a small sprinkle. However, there are some solid value bets available on the board.
Denny McCarthy is an obvious longshot to win this outright, but the better value is for him to finish inside the Top 40. While he missed the cut last season in his Open debut, he has been playing solid golf all season. In 5 of his last 6 events, McCarthy has finished inside the Top 40 and Draftkings is giving him out at +160 to finish inside the Top 40.
While Tommy Fleetwood is certainly worthy of an outright selection, we can get him at even money to finish inside the Top 20. He is 5th in Tour in accuracy and 9th in scrambling. He also finished in the Top 20 in 3 of his last 4 events and in 4 of the last 5 Open Championships. He seems to always find his way into contention for this major.
Xander Schauffele and Rory McIlroy Value Bets
Xander Schauffele, like Fleetwood, is a worthy outright pick. He has finished no worse than 26th in 4 of the last 5 Open Championships. On the season, he has 11 Top 10 finishes in 17 events started. Here at Royal Troon, we can get him at +130 to finish in the Top 10 and that certainly provides value with how he has played on the year.
Rory, is a different case. He seemingly cannot find a way to finish things on Sunday in Major tournaments. While -105 to finish top 10 is a bit appealing, we feel more comfortable backing him to be the top Irish golfer in this one. He is juicy at -165, but is only facing the threat of maybe 2 golfers. We are throwing away Darren Clarke, Liam Nolan and Padraig Harrington here. Tom McKibbon and Shane Lowry could pose potential threats. Rory finished 3rd in 2022 and 6th last season. McKibbon will be making his event debut and is likely going to have a hard time with this star-studded field. Lowry was 21st in 2022 and missed the cut last year. Since he won the event in 2019, he has gradually finished worse. Rory should win this prop bet rather easily.
